9 December 2013

Money Grubbing Bastards Vol. II

Blessed sanity! "Holyrood set to cut pay link after planned 11% rise for MPs" reports the Herald this morning, and a damn good thing too.

As I set out here back in July,
when these pay proposals first emerged from the Independent
Parliamentary Standards Authority, there's no reason whatever why
Holyrood should follow suit, adding flipping great wadges of cash to MSPs' already substantial piles.

While I welcome the statement of principle, Robbie Dinwoodie's Herald piece contains this curious passage.

"It is understood Holyrood's cross-party housekeeping committee, the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body (SPCB), is looking at how to break the link laid down in the Scotland Act 1998. It set the salary of an MSP, currently £58,097, at 87.5% of that of an MP. It is not clear if Holyrood would have to change the act to break this link or if it could be achieved by a legislative consent motion at Westminster."

"A Scottish Parliament spokeswoman said: "It would be wrong to assume any pay rise will automatically apply at Holyrood. The SPCB is aware of the IPSA consultation and has considered the most appropriate arrangements for determining MSPs' pay. The SPCB will be announcing its proposals shortly."

Reading this, you'd get the impression that cutting the link between
MSPs' and MPs' salaries is liable to be technically tricky, perhaps
requiring Westminster legislation to effect. But this is nonsense, and
Dinwoodie - or whoever he is taking his cues from - has seriously
garbled his legals here. A quick look at the parliamentary record, or
the 1998 Act itself, or recent events around the Bill Walker case, makes it absolutely clear that (a) it is easy for
Holyrood to diverge from Westminster's salary schemes (b) that no
fancy legal measures are required and (c) that almost all of Dinwoodie's legal analysis is not just wrong, but obviously wrong.

Let's clear away the fog. Firstly, Holyrood passes legislative consent motions when Westminster legislates in devolved areas. It can never be the other way around, since Holyrood can't legislate about reserved matters. Westminster recognises no such thing as a legislative consent motion.

Secondly, Holyrood can't change the Scotland Act on its own motion. If further devolution is required to enforce a more moderate pay scale
for legislators, Westminster would have to adopt subordinate legislation through
an Orders in Council under section 30 of the Scotland Act, as we observed
in the referendum debate - not a legislative consent motion as the Herald reports. But if changing MSPs' rates of pay relied on amending Holyrood's founding statute, Schedule 4 makes it is crystal clear that this would be outwith Holyrood's current powers.

The basic points: it is for the Scottish Parliament to determine the salaries of its members. Such provision may be made (a) by an Act of parliament or (b) by a motion conferring functions on its Corporate Body. If we delve back into Holyrood's early history, we'd discover that MSPs took the latter, more flexible course and that it was the Corporate Body, not Westminster, who adopted the policy of pegging MSPs' wages to 87.5% of that paid to their brethren serving in the London parliament.

No queer legal measures are indicated or necessary to detach that peg. The Corporate Body may do so on its own authority, though I imagine they might choose to lay any changes before MSPs in a motion to be validated.

We had a recent - very visible - example of this authority at work in the Bill Walker case. On this legal basis, Tricia Marwick was able speedily to act to change the salary scheme to cut the reluctant parliamentarian's wages by 90% during any such time as he would spend in the clink. That wouldn't have been possible, if complex constitutional tinkering was necessary.

Contra Dinwoodie, there are no legal impediments or complexities around severing the salary link. We should be able to expect similar decisiveness from Holyrood, in rejecting these disgusting and impolitic proposals.

10 comments
:

"cistern"?The Queen's is not my mother tongue, but I do know the meaning(s) of that word. Unless you are inferring, poetic like, that 'receptacles for fluids' are duly elected by the oiks in Blighty, I think you probably meant 'sistren' - the female equivalent of 'brethren'.Maybe?I am all for neologisms, malapropisms and fanciful wordsmithy, but I do believe y'all are gonna have to provide a lexicon for me.

And what in Hades is, was or ought to be, a 'Hessises"? This is irking me to no end!

Oh dear, 'arcane gag'? I now understand.If truth be revealed, as it is often, but not always, wont to do, it is I who should be contrite. I've the stench of the sin of hubris for thinking you erred - AND - I've committed the maximal culpa of not knowing that 'Brethren and Cistern' is a recognised - albeit arcane and probably also misogynist - phrase.Meus culpae!

It's your word!You used it when you described the efficacy of the Antonine Wall!"The antecedent Scots spearing deer and murdering Hessises in the heather according to their own laws and customs" or some such twaddle.

“I think of him more of a long nosed, elegantly coiffed Afghan pawing through his leather bound library whilst disdainfully inhaling a puddle of Armagnac in an immense crystal snifter. If he can also lift his leg over his shoulder and lick his balls...” ~ Conan the Librarian™

“... the erudite and loquacious Peat Worrier who never knowingly avoids a prolix circumlocution.” ~Love and Garbage

“My initial mind picture was of a scanty bikini'd individual wallowing in a bath tub of peat. However I've since learned to warm to him, and like peat he's slow to draw but quick to heat...” ~Crinkly & Ragged Arsed Philosophers

Definition: "to worry peat" v.

"Peat worrying" is the little known or understood process for the extraction of cultural peat, practised primarily in the Lowlands of Scotland by aspirant urban rustics. Primary implements by means of which successful "worrying" is achieved include the traditional oxter-flaughter but also the sharp-edged kailyard and the innovative skirlie stramasher.